couture week: jean paul gaultier
(images via
style)
it’s finally time to draw opt’s ever-lingering reflections on fashion week to draw to a close, fall couture edition, so i thought it would be fitting to once again end on the note that represents a designer regularly offering some of the most spectacular creations known to the art form:
jean paul gaultier (see his haute couture shows from
s/s 2010,
a/w 2010,
s/s 2011). thus, we can be a little sad and happy all at once.
as we moved into the scene, readying ourselves for whatever the designer might throw at our (somewhat) hapless selves this time, that (again?) soundtrack of the past year played, “actor Vincent Cassel winding up Natalie Portman about black swans and white swans,” as
style puts it, informing us first that somewhere in the aesthetics of the show, we’d get yet another flash at that so-fashion-beloved theme of the dance.
anyway, as i perhaps should have expected, mr. gaultier is ever edgier than that, with more of an unexpected turn (as ever) than a simple re-hashing of an already done theme, and for his a/w 2011 couture show. instead, as cathy horyn for the
nyt writes, “Mr. Gaultier seemed more interested in the characters who populated that world, some of them Russian émigrés,” leading us through a dance of our own with the ghosts of a not-always-pretty balletic past, as much about the places rudolph nureyev sprang from as the costumes he might have sported onstage.
most critics seem to agree that this was a retrospective of sorts—based, suzy menkes of the
iht argues, on “the magnificent retrospective of his work at the Montreal Fine Arts Museum”—detailing all the highlights of his some 35-year career (we’d rather recently seen another one for his rtw
s/s 2007 show). however, to pacify any ideas that this might have been a dull rifling through that which we’ve already seen, one might be best served to remember what mr. gaultier is known for: “plays on androgny and corsetry, winks to gypsies, boxers and sailors,”
wwd enthuses.
of the clothes themselves; “Jean-Paul Gaultier did not depart from his usual antics this season, even for the haute couture,”
t magazine assures us, but if there were these moments of storied eccentric-ism, the designer didn’t forget the lovely path he forged during his rtw
a/w 2011 show, during which he offered up plenty of lovely, tailored, and wearable alternatives for the chic over- 30 crowd.
to be sure, the show played with dance-like proportions, ruffles, and feathers. the latter drawing various raves, including an enthusiastic “
Gaultier used feathers with great imagination throughout the collections—tufts of multicolored marabou simulating camouflage prints or an Icelandic sweater; a feathered cockerel embellishing the sleeve of a black evening coat; and the bands of iridescent pheasant plumes streaking a full tulle skirt—with a bodice elaborately embroidered to simulate those feathers,” from vogue.
but to be fair, his stately pinstripes and precisely-cut-and-tailored lines were still on display, cathy horyn commenting that “(h)e reworked the classic trench coat — and before you say “Again?,” some of them were tempting, notably a long draped trench dress in beige jersey,” and
style noting that for all his ‘enfant terrible’ reputation, “the passage of time has taken the edge off such drollery,” allowing the designer to become something of a classicist that all the rest look up to something even…refined and elegant.
indeed, as suzy menkes seemingly concurs, “this show was also the nearest Mr. Gaultier has been to revealing the nonchalant elegance of his thoroughly modern couture. The classics might have a little fillip: tufts of fur or feathers on a trench, pleated at the back; or a leather and jersey coat named provocatively ‘
Black Swan.’”
in the end, the show seemed to make for all the elements that would leave the couture season, customers and critics alike, thoroughly satisfied. we saw plumes and ruffs, tutus and metallics, but also a strong statement on what one of the industry (and indeed, the art form)’s most storied designers stands for. and in a season when some of those other pillars of the community (
christian dior,
chanel) seemed to vacillate on what they were representing, it was all the better to see mr. gaultier, as ever, firmly rooted in the past, but ever moving forward.
.jpg "Scarlett Johansson")